MASERU, Lesotho -- If I had heard a sadder song, I could not remember.

Mahopolang was lying on her side in her mother's house in a small village up in the mountains of Lesotho. A 31-year-old mother, she had left her 13-year-old daughter in Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, and had come back to Bobatsi, her hometown, to die. She was singing a song for me, "Jesus looks after even the dying, the sick and sinners."

The women who had gathered to tend to her needs joined her in chorus. I held her hand tight, but I just could not find the words to comfort her. Over the past few years, stories like Mahopolang's have become more common.